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by Blue_Pandas



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, BDSM, Brief Impact Play (Tom/OC), Captivity, Don't copy to another site, Dubious Morality, Dysthymia, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:28:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24155866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Pandas/pseuds/Blue_Pandas
Summary: Captive in a strange community, Harry meets Tom Riddle, a mysterious man who opens his eyes to a new lifestyle.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, brief Tom Riddle/Original Characters
Comments: 2
Kudos: 101





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**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Earth for reading draft zero!
> 
> Please note that the setting is a community where there are “trainers” and “slaves.” The use of slaves in this is based on BDSM Master/slave lifestyles, which is why there is no slavery tag. Everyone depicted except Harry is there consensually. However, there’s also a very obvious non-con element in the setup of the worldbuilding. Tom is a dick in every universe.

_Fight. Fight back._ Harry hears his mentor’s voice in his head, shouting at him to get up, but he’s so tired. He’s been fighting for so long, and he’s not sure he believes in it anymore. Actually, scratch that—he’s definitely sure he doesn’t believe in it anymore. 

Winning a war at seventeen made him feel amazing and relieved because it was horrible, but it’s finished, right? It’s over, and his friends are safe. He can have a normal life now with his chosen family. And he did, until the next war. Because here’s the thing—it’s never just one war and then permanent peace. There’s always another one, and another one after that, until he’s aged two hundred years in under three decades.

Harry is twenty-eight years old when he lies on the cot in the small cell, counting tiles over his head. He is surrounded by grey walls on all sides except for one wall, which he’s sure is a two-way mirror. Who is looking at him from the other side? He can’t find it in himself to care. 

He kneels when they tell him to kneel. He eats what they tell him to eat. He lets them tie him up securely, collar and leash him, and parade him around. It should be a humiliating experience, but for him to feel embarrassed, he has to actually _feel_ something. 

The door opens. A man in a suit walks in. “Hello, Harry,” he says. 

_Hi_ , Harry thinks back, but he can’t find the energy to verbalise it. 

When Harry doesn’t respond aloud, the man comes over and sits at the foot of his cot. “My name is Tom. You’ll be moving in with me today. Let’s set some ground rules before we leave.”

A flicker of curiosity. Harry sits up, body sore and aching from lack of exercise, and stares at Tom. He’s handsome, dark eyes and dark hair coupled with angular cheekbones. 

“I’d like to think that I’m a very reasonable flatmate,” Tom says. “You’ll be expected to clean up after yourself in the common areas, but you have your own room for you to use as you wish. If you notice we’re running low on something, notify me. Do your dishes after you eat, wipe down if you make a mess, and stay quiet during reasonable sleeping hours, and we’ll get along just fine. Understand?” 

Harry nodded slowly. 

“Very good. Let’s go then.” 

Now? Harry doesn’t have anything to take with him, and he walks out with Tom. They go up the stairs, and no one stops them. He realises that he had been in a basement of some sort. Now, he’s in the ground floor of a facility. The walls are wallpapered with green and white stripes. The lights are a soft yellow, a sharp contrast from the bright white fluorescent in his cell. 

They walk through the halls until they reach a wide, open area. Tom goes to a woman sitting at the front desk and comes back with a pair of shoes. “I had to guess your size, but try these.” 

Harry slides his feet in. They fit, but they feel strange after he’s gone for so long with bare feet.

Tom opens the door for him, and they walk out. The sun is bright and warm, the air crisp and clear. A cool breeze ruffles his hair, and he shivers. Tom guides him down the stairs with a hand on his back and leads him across the pavement. They pass a few buildings and turn down a street. There are smaller houses here, and Tom opens the door of one of them, gesturing for Harry to go in. 

They’re in a small cosy flat that is a sharp contrast to Tom’s tailored suit. Flowers sit on the windowsills, and light beams down from the skylight. There is another vase of flowers sitting on a small table beside the kitchen.

“Would you like something to eat or drink?” Tom offers. 

Does he? He doesn’t know if this is a normal state of hunger and thirst. He can’t remember the last time he ate, but he knows he never felt too weak to survive. They provided him with regular meals that bleed together in his memories. 

It takes Harry a few minutes to realize Tom is waiting patiently for a response. Finally, he gives a minute shake of his head. 

Tom nods. “You can get water here and food in the pantry. I cook lunch and dinner, but if you’re ever hungry, you can come here to get a snack. Let’s go to your room.” Tom guides him down the hall and opens a door to a bland room. Dresser, bed, window without bars, closet. “This is your space. I won’t intrude unless you invite me in. For now, we have some clothes for you that were in our supplies, but if you want something else, tell me, and we’ll see what we can do. Do you have any questions?” 

So many, but Harry is too tired to voice any except one. “Am I a prisoner?” he rasps, voice coming harsh and broken from not talking in a long time. 

“Yes,” Tom says bluntly. He steps out of the room and shuts the door behind him.

Harry looks through the dresser and closet. There are multiple sets of the same institutional white shirt and trousers he is currently wearing. He pushes everything closed and slides the window open. The cold makes him shiver, and he only looks around long enough to note that there are flowers beneath his window before sliding the latch shut. 

The bed in this room is larger than the cot in the cell he had been in. The sheets are soft against his hands, the duvet thick and comfortable. Harry snuggles up under the weight of the duvet and goes back to sleep.

* * *

A series of rapid knocks on the door wakes him up. Harry can’t remember the last time someone knocked on his door instead of walking straight in, and the surprise is enough to get up and open the door. 

“I cooked dinner,” Tom says. “Do you want to eat in here or outside with me?” 

Harry looks at Tom’s empty hands and silently steps out. They sit in the small kitchen table. The vase of flowers has been moved to the side. Two identical plates of pasta sit on the table. 

The food they had served him in the cell had been bland. It had enough nutrients to keep Harry from getting sick, but it tasted like gruel. The flavour here shocks his taste buds, and after a few bites, his stomach rebels. Old habits have him eat the whole plate no matter how he feels, but his stomach starts gurgling unhappily soon after. 

Harry washes up his dishes in the sink and retreats back to his room when Tom doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t know what he’s doing here or how much time has passed since he arrived. The window latch opens, and the world is out there, but he stays in this house and the silence that has penetrated almost every aspect of his life.

* * *

With the window and Tom announcing lunch and dinner, days are easier to keep track of now, but Harry still loses count. He thinks it’s a week after that he realises what Tom does here. 

He has grown more comfortable venturing out beyond his room when Tom does not stop him or ask him questions. He knows there are four rooms in this house. One is Tom’s bedroom, the second is his office, the third is Harry’s room, and the fourth is always locked. Except apparently not _always._

Harry stands adjacent to the doorway, but from his angle, he can see a naked man facing the wall. Tom is holding a rod in his hand, and he brings it sharply down on the man’s thighs. _Crack!_ It leaves behind a white line that rapidly fills with blood, and gods, it must hurt, but the man never makes a sound. 

Tom repeats this nine times, leaving behind ten perfectly spaced out pink lines. “You took this well, pet,” he praises.

“Thank you, sir,” the man says wetly. 

Harry watches Tom gather the man into his arms. It’s a sharp contrast, thick muscles versus Tom’s too-thin arms, and Harry feels like he’s intruding on an intimacy he does not understand. He leaves before either of them can see him and spends the rest of the day in his room until Tom tells him dinner is ready.

It haunts him. He hears the crack of the rod again and again. Why does Tom do this? Is he a torturer? Is he a sadist?

One question doesn’t cross his head until one day he’s spying through the door and Tom lifts his head, dark eyes boring into his soul. Harry freezes, something he hasn’t done since he was a child, and waits for Tom to do anything. Will Tom hurt him? 

Tom sends the latest person, a woman with long brunette hair, on her way after his customary cuddling. “Come in, Harry,” he says. 

Harry swallows and walks in. He looks around the room, seeing everything he didn’t have a chance to look at from out the door. There are ropes and cuffs, riding crops and whips, something that looks like tiny points on a glove, gags and blindfolds, and that’s just the start. 

“I assume you have questions,” Tom says. “Do you want to ask them?”

“Why do you hurt these people?”

“Because they broke a rule. Some owners handle punishments themselves, but others will send their slaves to me for discipline.” 

“Am I a slave?” 

“No, you’re a potential. There hasn’t been a trainer assigned to you.”

“Why not?” 

“For a few reasons. First, trainers like to observe cases before taking them on. Second, most of them prefer their potentials to be here consensually.”

Harry frowns. “So the people who come to you to be hurt, they’re willing? Why?” 

“They don’t come to be hurt,” Tom corrects. “They’re here for punishment, and it’s up to their owner or me to decide what their punishment will be. As for why, they come because of the promise that after the punishment, their transgressions are forgiven. We don’t hold past wrongdoings over their head. We don’t shame them or humiliate them.” 

“You said most.” 

“Pardon?” 

“Most prefer consent.” 

Tom shrugs. “Ah, well, we have those cells for a reason.”

“What reason?” Harry pushes. 

“We have a reputation and we need to get money from somewhere,” Tom says. “Some people need answers. We provide them.” 

The implied work they do would not be clear to most, but Harry was a soldier. He knows they obtained vital information from prisoners that got shipped off somewhere, and he is pretty sure he knows how they got that information. “You torture people,” Harry says, heart hammering in his chest.

“Yes.” 

He swallows. “Is that…why I’m here? Are you going to hurt me?” 

“No. You’re here because you stumbled on something you shouldn’t have. We’re a secret group. Confidentiality is vital to our work, both to protect the identities of those who come willingly and to hide the answers we obtain from others.” 

“Those are very different things,” Harry says. 

Tom smiles slightly. “Yes.” 

“Am I a prisoner?” he asks, repeating his first words to Tom.

“Until we can be sure you won’t talk. It’s for your own safety.” 

“Why?” 

“Because some would kill to protect their secrets.”

* * *

Things go back to normal or at least, some semblance of it. Harry finds himself taking a more active part, and he cooks two days of the week for them. It’s easier to keep track of the days passing by now that he’s not in his room all the time. 

No one stops him from leaving Tom’s house, and Harry starts exploring. They’re in an isolated community. Harry sees fireplaces designated for floo calls and floo travels, wands for spellcasting, and cauldrons and ingredients for potions making. He can use any of those to leave, but he does not. 

Harry remembers his anti-interrogation training. They trained him to take pain so he would hold up under questioning. He’s been whipped, drowned, branded, burned, and beaten by people who could give Tom a run for his money. He knows about Stockholm syndrome and empathising with his captors, but he does not know if this is what he is going through. 

“Do you think it’s strange that I haven’t tried to escape?” Harry asks Tom one day at lunch. 

“Some people do,” Tom says. “They tried to see what made you tick at first and found your docility disconcerting.”

He thinks about the ache in his knees when he knelt on hard stone and the feeling of a leather collar around his neck as a leash held him to a…trainer? He’s not sure who plays what role in this community and who he has met. The early days are a blur. 

“What would happen if I tried?”

“To run? We’d find you and bring you back. No matter how long it took. You’d probably be under more security than you currently are.” 

He chews on that and his broccoli. Harry is a soldier, not a spy. He holds up under captivity, but he hasn’t been trained to stay on the run for months and years. It’s definitely possible they’d find him if they tried. “What if someone came for me here?” 

“Depends on who. We have a lot of legal pull, and there are others who are invested in keeping us up and running, so it’s unlikely for someone to try through official means. If they mounted a rescue operation and invaded, we’d protect ourselves.” 

“What am I supposed to do here?” 

“Whatever you want, within reason.” 

“What if I want…” Harry trails off, not sure how to phrase this. 

Tom has been laidback and calm, never pushing where Harry does not want to go, so it’s a surprise when he says, “Finish that statement.” 

The order is clear and helps Harry find the words. “What if I want you to do the things you do to those people to me?” He’s not entirely sure that question makes sense, but Tom understands anyway. 

“I would refuse,” Tom says calmly. 

“Why?” He’s not sulking. Absolutely not. 

“Because I don’t think you have the understanding necessary to make an informed consent, and I’m not under contract to obtain information from you.” 

This is Harry’s first real confirmation that Tom is one of those that hurts unwilling people too. He should feel scared, and maybe it’s nerves that make his palms sweat, but mostly, he’s just irritated. He doesn’t even know why. It’s a reasonable answer. “Okay,” he says. 

“If you do want to know more, there are people you can talk to. I can put you in contact with them.” 

Harry shakes his head. The thought of talking to a stranger terrifies him more than the idea of Tom being a torturer. Harry knows his priorities are fucked up, but he can’t find it in him to care. 

Maybe he’s been Stockholmed more than he thought.

* * *

The pain room isn’t off limits per se, in that Tom hasn’t explicitly forbidden Harry from entering as long as no one else is present. Maybe Tom doesn’t expect it because Harry has been respectful and avoiding rooms with shut doors, but one afternoon, Harry sneaks in. 

He feels as though he is doing something illicit, and that makes him want to leave before Tom realises what’s happening. However, Harry can’t resist the curiosity, and he carefully circles the room with silent steps. He trails his fingers across an elevated leather bench of sorts and fingers the buckles clearly meant for restraints. 

One corner of the room is solely dedicated to impact instruments, and Harry walks over for a closer look. They are clearly in good condition, no sign of frayed edges that can cause unintended damage. He sees a metal stick with a roller of metal points on one end and presses his fingers against it carefully. The points bite down but do not break the skin.

“It’s a Wartenberg pinwheel,” Tom says behind him.

Harry jumps and spins around, squirming from being caught, but Tom doesn’t seem to be angry. “What is it for?” he asks after a while. 

“A few things such as sensation play. It feels a lot more intense than it looks.” 

“I’m sorry,” Harry blurts. “I didn’t mean to snoop.” 

“This is your house too. As long as you don’t try to use any of this on yourself, I won’t be mad. There are a lot of ways someone untrained can cause too much damage. Is there anything else you’re curious about?” 

Harry shakes his head.

“All right. Someone is coming over in thirty minutes, so you have twenty more to explore.” Tom hesitates for a moment. “The person is an exhibitionist and likely wouldn’t mind you watching, though I’d have to speak to her and her owner first to obtain consent.”

“Would you”—Harry swallows nervously—“Would you do the talking?” 

“Yes. You wouldn’t have to say anything.” Tom walks over to a drawer and pulls out a long band of cloth. “In fact, if you want, I can gag you with this. You’ll be able to talk through it, and I’ll give you a signal if you want me to help you undo the gag. It will be knotted behind your head, and you can undo it too.”

Harry stares at the green gag and shakes his head, not because he’s scared of it but because he’s scared of how much he _wants_ it. This is a physical symbol that Tom doesn’t mind how Harry falls silent during conversations, how he would rather not talk most of the time, how he lacks words. _Yesyesyes,_ his brain is crying, and the intensity of this terrifies him. 

“Maybe next time,” Harry rasps and hurries past Tom. 

Tom lets him go. Harry is thankful he does but wishes he hasn’t at the same time.

* * *

Pamphlet unsubtly start appearing around the house. There is more information about BDSM, safewords, hard limits, soft limits, kink negotiation, and so on than Harry could have imagined existed. He’s not entirely sure they’re accurate, or maybe this place isn’t exactly BDSM because some of the things in the pamphlets don’t match what he sees.

There is also a sexual element that Harry hasn’t thought about until he sees a pamphlet devoted to orgasm control and chastity. For the first time since he can remember, he grows hard from reading about how some Doms control when and if their subs come, and he flees to the bathroom, cheeks on fire as he douses himself in cold water, just to harden again when he’s towelling off and wondering if this is something Tom is interested in.

At dinner, he can’t look at Tom in the eye or get through a sentence without stuttering. Harry knows Tom must notice something is wrong, but he never comments on it. 

“How does a gag work with eating?” Harry finally blurts out. 

“It depends on the reason for gagging,” Tom says. “If it’s because the sub isn’t supposed to speak, they would be under the same order, have the gag removed for meals and hygiene-related activities, and be gagged again after. If they spoke, they would be punished. It it’s for another reason, such as aesthetics or because the sub prefers to be gagged, they wouldn’t be punished, and they may be gagged again after.”

“You wouldn’t, um, starve anyone or anything, right?”

“Never,” Tom says firmly. “Not prisoners, not potentials, not slaves. Some things are always provided such as shelter, health care, and regular nutritious meals.”

Harry has no more questions, at least none he is willing to ask Tom outright, and they spend the rest of the meal in peaceful silence.

* * *

They’re in a stalemate. Tom is very careful about not pushing Harry too far or pressuring him into anything, and Harry understands why now. He still can’t explain what exactly he wants from Tom, but he knows that if anything happens, it will be consensual because informed consent is important to Tom. That means Harry has to make the first move.

He goes through countless approaches in his head, approaching it almost as though he would approach a battle. The comparison makes Harry flinch, and he quickly strikes the thought out of his mind. He recites what he will say in his head, going over it again and again until he has something semi-coherent that hopefully won’t come out a rambling mess. He’s too scared to practice aloud when he lives in the same house as Tom because if Tom overhears, Harry is going to walk right back to his cell just to avoid facing the music. 

The biggest thing holding him back is the possibility Tom says no. Harry doesn’t know why Tom took him in as a housemate. He doesn’t know Tom’s goals. Is he just doing someone an obligation? Does he even like Harry? 

Tom is also in a position of power. Harry recognises that he would have nothing without Tom’s goodwill, and he questions whether he _can_ give informed consent with this power differential. An easy solution is to propose an unbreakable vow that he’ll speak of nothing about this community and leave, gain enough autonomy and power to come back an equal.

But Harry doesn’t want to. He likes it here. He likes the cobblestone streets, the well-tended gardens, and even the people. It’s commonly known and accepted here that he doesn’t talk. He doesn’t know what they think, but no one ever gives him a second look when he orders by pointing to a menu or smiles but doesn’t respond as someone waves at him as they pass on the street. He’s been here long enough to know who is an owner or a slave on sight from overhearing conversations. He’s not sure if they know who he is, but either way, they treat him like a friend. 

Something has to break the stalemate. Harry has never claimed to be a good strategist, and that will always be his excuse for why one day, he gets up, walks to a floo, and goes back to his small flat that was never a home. 

Floos can be traced, and Harry is not trying to hide. If Tom is correct, someone will be coming for him soon. Instead, he goes through the massive build-up of mail, tossing the majority of it to the side. There are a few messages from friends, but those are all months old. They stopped trying to reach him when he never responded. 

His walls are bare, and his flat is devoid of life. Everything is as impersonal as the day he moved in. 

The floo comes to life, and Harry turns around. Tom steps out. 

“How do you calculate what your life amounts to?” Harry asks.

“I don’t think you can put a number on that,” Tom says. “However, with your record, I think your life amounts to more than you can imagine.” 

Tom knows who he is, what he’s done. It’s not unexpected, but it hurts anyway. Harry wants one part of his life untouched by war, but this was never possible with Tom, not when Tom works for generals and spies. “Do you think anyone looked for me?”

For the first time that Harry can remember, Tom looks uncomfortable. However, Tom has always answered all of Harry’s questions, and this time is no different. “I don’t think you want to know the answer to that.” 

“Maybe not. Will you tell me anyway?”

“We’ve done some work for your Ministry before, and when we realised who you were, we reached out to them. They wanted to retain our services, and they disavowed you.”

“Fuck,” Harry says eloquently. He’s not surprised, just tired. The ends justify the means after all, and they were always disposable, even him despite how much he gave them.

“Is there anything you want to take with you?”

Harry takes one last look at the sterile flat and shakes his head. “I need you to know,” he says, “that I can walk out at any time. Unless you lock me back up in that cell, I’m not a prisoner.” 

“All right,” Tom says. 

“Take us home?”


End file.
